


Reaching a Breaking Point

by bi_leigh_bi



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Light Smut, M/M, Post-Canon, let them rest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:28:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26112646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bi_leigh_bi/pseuds/bi_leigh_bi
Summary: Immediately after there is just this... they are tired. They are so very tired.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 18
Kudos: 225





	Reaching a Breaking Point

After.

After, there is only Joe’s tired brown eyes. Darker than Nicky can ever remember them being. Tired lines around them, dark circles beneath. His eyes are old right now. And pained. Wet and bright with tears Nicky doesn’t even think Joe realizes are gathering. They don’t fall. They stay bright like stars in Joe’s eyes.

There is only Joe’s eyes seeking Nicky out in the review mirror before the car even takes off onto the road. Meeting, gaze locking, like hands holding. They stare at one another, exhausted, more broken then they can remember being in a very long time. Everything in their world is upside down. 

He’s so tired. He’s bone deep, soul deep, weary. All that healing, the dying and the injuries and the torture- it doesn’t come without a price. In fact it costs them dearly. There’s a reason they sleep when they can. And right now he can’t breathe with how tired he is. His eyes want to close, the lids so heavy. Joe’s too, he can see it.

A week ago they would have. They would have laid their heads down, knowing they were safe. They are not safe now. He doesn’t know when they’ll be safe again. 

He’s too tired to even be angry about it.

After.

Time passes but he only counts it in the slow blinks of Joe’s eyes, in the gentle jerks of his head as he fights sleep. Nile’s head drops to Joe’s shoulder and Joe startles. Not enough to wake her. It’s the first time that Joe’s eyes leave Nicky’s and it’s stupid that his heart should beat faster- panicked. 

He reaches back between the seats, grasps Joe’s hand. Dark eyes find his again, blood shot and wide, as their hands grasp at each other. Fingers interlock. They cling. Even the strength of their desperate grip is weaker than normal. But they don’t let go. It hurts his shoulder and he’s sure Joe would prefer to lean deeper back into the back seat, but they don’t let go. 

He’s aware of Booker’s head dropping against the glass as he finally sleeps. Niles’ soft snores against Joe’s shoulder. He envies them their rest.

Nicky is so tired. His head drops and he jerks awake with a start, tightening his hold on Joe’s hand. Joe’s head jerks too, he squeezes Nicky’s hand in return. Their eyes are desperate, locked. Holding each other’s gaze as if letting it go meant a plunge to certain and final death. 

They aren’t safe.

After.

After, there is a safe house outside London. But it doesn’t feel any safer than the car. Nicky’s body aches, his hair and neck and back are sticky with dried blood. He itches.

He doesn’t look at Booker. He doesn’t want him there. He doesn’t trust him. But mortal or not, Andy is their leader. She’s not ready to deal with it or to dole out punishment and Nicky gets it. He’s going to pretend Booker has simply ceased to exist. Joe is so tired that even he seems content with this tactic. They communicate it with looks alone, too tired to speak.

They claim the bathroom, hands still clutching. They don’t let go even when Nicky gets the shower running. His eyes are so blood shot that the blue is startling and so dry it hurts to blink. His head is pounding. 

They pull each other’s clothes off, push each other gently under the hot spray of water. He closes his eyes but only because Joe’s naked body is pressed so close against his own and his hands are slowly cleaning each strand of Nicky’s hair. His head is heavy, it drops, his cheek rests against Joe’s shoulder. He is so tired. His arms wrapped around him, holding tight. Fingers spread over as much unharmed skin as possible.

They’re alive. He feels a little bit safer now. Under the hot water and in Joe’s arms. 

He murmurs his name. _Yusuf_. Barely a whisper or even a breath. _Niccolò_ is the sigh of a reply. It’s all they’ve said since they got in the car.

After.

There is a warm bed with clean sheets that only smell a little musty from disuse. There is Joe still naked against him, warm and alive. There are legs tangled, lips finding lips, hungry and desperate. There is the salt of tears, soft breathless moans. They’re tired. But they need this too. Even if it’s just hands on each other’s cocks, mouths catching soft moans, hips rocking together, until they both come. Coating each other’s skin. There is something... there’s something necessary about this reminder that they’re alive. They survived. They’re free.

Nicky barely has the energy to grab the towel from the floor to wipe them down. Joe pulls the blankets over them. For once they sleep facing each other. Arms wrapped around one another, legs still twined together. Nicky is shaking. Maybe Joe is too. But they are, finally, too tired to do anything other than sleep. 

They sleep.

Days of torture and death and pain and fear finally catching up to them. It’s closer to blacking out then falling asleep, but they rest all the same.

Until.

After.

After, there are nightmares.

Joe’s voice broken and loud, crying out, begging for Nicky in languages they rarely even use anymore. His eyes, when they open are still unseeing. There are worried voices at the door, Andy opening it enough to put her head in. There is confusion, sleep grit eyes, his head still pounding as if it’s still knitting itself together. 

But he promises they’re fine. He shields Joe from curious and worried eyes as he cries into Nicky’s chest. Nicky cries for him, with him. He cries and it hurts, his eyelids so swollen he’s not sure he could see even if the lights were on. But he quiets Joe, he promises him they’re fine.

They are.

They will be. They will. He promises Joe over and over again. He listens to Joe as he lists all the ways he’d seen Nicky hurt. Every injury he witnessed. Every death. As he shudders and stumbles talking about how long it had taken Nicky to heal from Keane’s head shot. 

Nicky can’t blame him. He could list Joe’s injuries too. He could remember all the times he’d died on that table and how at some point it had become a relief. If Joe was dead, he wasn’t in pain. And oh, that thought alone hurts him. 

Because every death matters, even before Andy’s mortality. They knew they mattered, they felt each one. And that... doctor... had made him wish for Joe’s deaths. For the rest, the break from pain, from fear. 

Nicky isn’t sure he can or wants to forgive that. In his heart he can’t imagine it. In their bed he kisses and holds and runs fingers through curls he adores. He holds the most precious thing in his world as he breaks apart. Shatters. It’s okay. 

Whispered in the language Joe taught him. _It’s okay, it’s okay, I love you, I’m here_.

After.

They spend the next five days more or less in this bed. One or the other leaves to get food, water, coffee- they take a bath every single day just enjoying the heat and the closeness- but they spend most of the days in an exhausted heap on the bed. Nicky reads to Joe. Joe recites him poetry.

Booker leaves after the fourth night of Joe’s nightmares waking the entire house. Nicky almost wants to make him stay. His own pain he might forgive. But Joe’s? Joe suffers still with what they endured. His open, joyful heart is broken. His words, always so easy for him, are lost. Joe is quiet unless he is begging Nicky not to leave him in the dark of night. 

The truth is, he doesn’t believe Booker when he says he’s sorry. He doesn’t believe the begging pathetic looks he shoots them all. He’s betrayed them in the deepest of ways and Nicky thinks he’s only sorry he didn’t actually find a way to die.

It’s a relief when he goes. It’s the first night Joe doesn’t wake them all screaming though Nicky isn’t sure that’s because Booker is gone. He still wakes in the middle of the night but it’s with whispers of Nicky’s name not screams and it’s easier to calm him. 

After

They make love for the first time since before they were taken.

Joe wakes from nightmares and his hands are insistent and desperate. He catches Nicky’s words of comfort with his hungry mouth and Nicky submits to it easily and willingly. Joe’s hands on his skin, in his hair. His mouth everywhere. Like he can’t decide where he wants to taste Nicky.

Joe works him open with mouth and fingers until he’s loose limbed and his cock is leaking and he’s begging. Doesn’t care if he’s loud and the others hear. And when Joe finally slicks his cock and pushes inside of Nicky their eyes are locked on one another. Their hands grasping, pulling each other close. Their foreheads touch and their breath is shared and shaking between them. 

It’s slow and sweet. Joe brings him to the edge and then draws him back. They’re a mess, both of them. It’s perfect. It’s all Nicky needs. It’s Joe who finally breaks. He pushes in deep and fills Nicky with a desperate cry and it’s almost enough to push Nicky over the edge too. But Joe begs him, pulls out carefully and wraps his mouth around Nicky’s cock. That- _that_ is all it takes. Nicky grasps Joe’s hair and fills his mouth. And Joe makes the most satisfied noise as he swallows around Nicky’s cock.   
  
When he makes his way up Nicky’s body and kisses him Nicky can taste himself on his lips. Joe falls asleep half on top of Nicky and Nicky falls asleep not long after. They aren’t fixed but something that was broken feels a little less sharp around the edges.

After.

There is Joe’s dark eyes in the bright light of morning. They’re a little less blood shot, a little brighter. There’s his voice, actually speaking not just reciting poetry or injuries but talking to Nicky. To Andy. To Nile. There’s bare feet in dewy grass and the sunrise and deep breaths. 

There’s naps. Curled up outside on the small porch at the back of the house. There’s a lot of sleep. They’re still so very tired. Exhausted. But day by day it gets better.

Until finally there is Joe’s hand clutching his as they talk about what was done to them. As Andy asks gentle questions and she and Nile listen. As they begin to discuss what this means. For them. For Booker. For their future and their family. Joe takes long pauses. He swallows hard when he talks about watching them take pieces of Nicky. And Nicky is so quiet it’s almost impossible to hear him as he admits out loud that he began to pray for Joe’s deaths. That he might know peace. Even for a moment.

The way Joe looks at him breaks his heart. He hates himself for saying it. But Joe pulls him close and they forget that Nile and Andy are even there and Nicky buries his face in Joe’s neck and holds onto him. 

After. 

Nicky says one hundred years and not a day less and no one argues. Not Nile who would have accepted an apology. Not Andy who understood the need for the punishment but didn’t know what punishment fit. Not Joe. Not Joe, who would have accepted less.

Nicky says one hundred and not a year less and his light eyes meet Joe’s dark eyes and that’s all there is.

There is just Joe. Who suffered. Who Nicky cannot trust Booker to protect. Not now. Maybe not in a hundred years. 

Maybe... maybe after. 

**Author's Note:**

> Will I ever stop writing post movie fic? Nope. And fandom can pry my headcanon that it was Nicky who said “100 year exile” from my cold dead fingers.


End file.
